


Such Selfish Prayers

by Chaerring



Series: This Is His Love, This is Her Body [4]
Category: James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Gen, Language, Sexual Content, more tags to come
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-19 17:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaerring/pseuds/Chaerring
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Q’s also told him that she likely has scars hidden beneath her layers of clothing. James wants to see them even more than before, but simultaneously, he has less of an urge to undo her clothing. Even his thoughts on her reflect how little he understands what’s going on in her mind or between them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own any of this.
> 
> Thanks to TheGreatSporkWielder for beta-ing. :D And much thanks to everyone who has read and commented or kudos'd the series so far.
> 
> So to everyone whom I told I would continue after I wrote my papers, this is your fault. I got so many lovely comments it happened before my papers. ;;;

One mission for James, and two months for Q after their strange afternoon drinking and watching shitty telly together, Q is called into M’s office for something that is decidedly not her usual budget report.

“You’re going to Russia.”

Q’s heart thumps in her chest embarrassingly quick and loud and she fights the urge to leave the room entirely. She had no intention of ever leaving England again.

“Why?”

Good agents don’t ask why. If they need to know it’s already in their folders, and if they don’t--well, then they don’t need to know. Q, however, only pretended to be a good agent for the previous M. Now that her recruiter was gone and she had one of the most powerful positions in MI6, Q wasn’t about to go into things as blindly as she used to.

“007 may have need of technical support. You’re the only one available with the experience and necessary skills. Also, he listens to you more.”

It sounds ridiculous to her. Yes, she knows Tanner’s on family related leave, and Baxter just returned with a broken arm from South America, but surely there’s someone else capable of assisting him.

“Not by much.”

She’s only telling the truth. It appears 007 listens slightly more to her than the average technical agent, but compared to how much he listens to any directions it’s still a miniscule difference. M’s voice gets a little harder and his eyes come up from his paperwork to bore into her.

“It’s enough. Do you want to explain why you seem so adverse to the mission?”

Q doesn’t need to explain herself. She knows he’s read her file, and that Eve’s probably told him exactly what her reaction would be to this request.

“I won’t be of any use if you put me on a plane,” is what she answers instead.

“A few trains are fast enough. Miss Moneypenny has scheduled them out.”

Q grits her teeth and makes a note to make all unimportant communications with M (a few of them do exist) arrive extra slowly and with strange images attached to them for the next few months.

“Yes, sir.”

She rises without his dismissal and heads for the door. She doesn’t pause when he begins to speak.

“I wouldn’t if I didn’t need to, Q.”

The sentiment doesn’t make much of a difference. Eve catches her in the hallway as they’re both headed back to their desks.

“Q, I tried to--”

“I know, Eve.”

There wasn’t much Eve would question M about because Eve _is_ a good agent, and a rising observant one as well, but it means something to Q that Eve would try to protect her in this instance. It’s one of the few she would accept protection in.

****************************************

“Why are we on a train?”

James is baiting the woman across from him, possibly being crueler about it than usual because he knows she’s afraid of flying, but he couldn’t stop the words from forming. Her face doesn’t change, flat as it always is when she’s working, but he sees the knuckles of her hand in her lap lose color. 

“Because M has ordered us across the continent.”

He had expected the avoidance. No agent, Q Branch or elsewhere, liked to talk about their fears and problems.

“But why, Q, can’t we take a plane?”

He stuck the knife in a little further and twisted. It wasn’t her fault he couldn’t figure out what she wanted. He knew that. He knew the fault was with himself and his understanding of her, but for the life of him it rankled. He wanted to dissect everything she directed at him and know her motivations. He wanted her to react to him more than anyone else. It was disturbing even in his own mind how fascinated he had become with Q since he failed to take her to bed two months ago.

“I’m afraid of them.”

He hadn’t expected her to admit to it. Automatically, he opened his mouth to make the situation worse, but she gave him no space to.

“That’s--”

“The last plane I was on was attacked. A 00 and I were taken. I was recovered. We’re on a train because you need me in top form, not going through a massive post traumatic stress attack.”

James doesn’t know how to respond. He feels like he finally got a reaction, but nowhere near the one he wanted. He also feels almost as chastised as M could make him feel sometimes. It’s a peculiar sensation to have faced with lanky, dark haired Q instead of M’s stout form and perpetually unpleased face. 

In her discomfort, though, Q has given things away to him. She’s just told him that she’s been in the field, more than once to be working with a 00. She’s also told him that she’s been taken, tortured like he’s been, not in the same ways, perhaps, because humans have no end to the way they can hurt each other, but he can’t help but feel like they have more shared experiences than he had ever considered before.

She’s also told him that she likely has scars hidden beneath her layers of clothing. He wants to see them even more than before, but simultaneously, he has less of an urge to undo her clothing. Even his thoughts on her reflect how little he understands what’s going on in her mind or between them.

“...Understood.”

It’s perhaps the biggest lie he’s ever told.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to TheGreatSporkWielder for beta-ing! 
> 
> And thank you very much to everyone who's been reading and leaving me feedback on this series!

James asks once if Q would like him to carry her bags. She levels him with a look that plainly says she’s never trusting him with her tech beyond what she has to give him on missions. He doesn’t ask again, even when her step falters slightly over an uneven patch of the ground and she curses under her breath. She’s not limping, but her gait is off. Her leg looks stiff under his trained eye. Apparently letting her sleep after their conversation wasn’t the best thing. She should have had the chance to walk the corridors to keep whatever lingering injury she had from paining her so badly. She’s a constant revelation to him. He’s gathering more and more pieces the longer they spend together, but it seems as though the more he gathers, the more he comes to notice he’s missing.

He pops the boot on the car they’ve been given and starts loading things, only to find Q still hasn’t released her bags to him and is actually standing in the taxi line. His face must give away his confusion because her lips twitch and she wiggles her fingers at him.

“Well, go on. Did you think I’d be joining you at your hotel?”

Q’s eyebrow raises in challenge for him to say something else, but they both know exactly what they look like. Q looks ridiculously young and tiny in her layers upon layers of sweaters and coats. James hardly ever looks less than his best, but he doesn’t sleep on trains or planes and his straight razor was decidedly confined to his luggage for the duration of their journey. She looks like she’s brushing off the come on of an older man and she’s caught the sympathy of the taxi queue that think they understand the situation no matter their language. It’s annoying and would be embarrassing if he cared about that sort of thing, but he doesn’t and he knows he deserves it for the way he needled her on the train. He bids her a sharp farewell and gets in the car. 

***************************************************************************************************

Q settles in to the smallish, but cozy apartment setup for field stays by agents that aren’t double 0s, and feels extremely grateful for it. There’s even a kettle for her to make tea while she sets everything up and slips nimbly into the hotel’s digital system. It doesn’t even take her both hands to find James’s hallway and send his phone the message to put his ear bud in. 

“I’m not Miss Moneypenny.”

It’s far from what she intended to open with, but now that she’s said it, it will have to do.

“Yes, I’ve gathered that.”

James’s dry tone and the sound of him unzipping his garment bag for his tuxedo reached her ears. It isn’t enough to tell whether or not he’s following her train of thought.

“I’m not Eve. I don’t go sitting across the room in dresses worth more than a year’s rent to provide you with amusing commentary.”

There’s silence on Bond’s end and she knows she’s been completely unfair to Eve and the training they both went through. She bites back a sigh of frustration and waits for him, unable to even guess the direction his response might come from.

“You used to do it for a different 00, though, didn’t you, Q?”

It’s the first time she’s ever had the urge to hit him. She’s sure it won’t be the last. Bond is absolutely determined to make her as uncomfortable on this mission as he possibly can, despite her wish to never be in the field even marginally ever again. 

“Blatant fishing, Bond? I thought that was beneath you.”

“Why don’t you get under me and find out if it really is or not?”

It’s horrible. The line is absolutely the worst she’s ever heard, and she can tell he knows it. His delivery was short and angry. She couldn’t even consider it a double entendre it was so obvious and crude. She decides it’s not worth getting her pants in a wad or even responding to. Chilly silence settles of their comm as he dresses. 

“Q, I didn’t-”

She doesn’t want an apology. She just wants him to put a bloody fucking stop to his petulant baiting. 

“Your target has arrived in the bar and is catching eyes. I trust you’ll be able to catch hers.”

Thankfully, James lets the matter drop for the moment and finishes preparing for his entrance downstairs. Q turns her attention to reviewing her portion of the mission. It isn’t long before she’s comparing the orders from Mallory to the information that was stored in her system about their target. She can see James in the elevator and the mark engaged with another man through the security cameras. Q isn’t quite sure what she’s found, or whether it’s worth mentioning to him, but the discrepancy stands the hairs on her neck up. There’s a knot forming in her stomach; it’s an instinct she’s learning to pay attention to even if it means no sleep.

“James.”

“Q? Something wrong?”

His immediate attention despite the fact that he’s walking through the lobby to the bar and the mark is a relief after their earlier exchange.

“Our intelligence doesn’t match my older records. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that I’m needed here. You’re more than capable of the computer work needed to get the information from her system.”

“M?”

The implication that M did something to put her in the field needlessly just because he could was an interesting one, but she had to dismiss it.

“No. No matter how much good it would do me to leave the office sometimes he wouldn’t send me if he hadn’t thought it was necessary. My time is valuable in the extreme.”

James gives a small amused noise, but continues on.

“Someone altered it before it reached Eve then. The question is do they want you in Russia? Or just away from home?”

There he went again, implying things. It hadn’t even occurred to her that her presence or absence could be the purpose of the alteration, but considering that was the only change in the mission parameters, Bond was correct in making the leap. 

“I don’t know.”

He pauses on the security feed and turns towards the nearest camera, the one she has pulled up currently. It’s exactly like he’s looking into her eyes despite her absolute knowledge that he cannot see her. 

“Should I meet you somewhere?”

Bond is completely and utterly serious about abandoning the mission in order to come and guard her. Logically, she knows she’s Q and the information in her mind could be used to topple the free world, and that any 00 would abandon their smaller posts to protect her, but his concern sends a thrill through her anyway. She honestly considers summoning to her side for a moment. She could keep him there until she figured out what the bloody hell was going on, but that would be impractical and unnecessary. 

“No. Thank you for the offer. I should be able to hold my own and give you more than ample time to get to me between the security here and my own abilities.”

He looks away from the camera, but his brow arches. 

“Well, if you’re sure, Q...”

Doubt flickers in her mind for a moment, but the knot in her stomach doesn’t clench tighter so she lets it go.

“I am. Your target is ahead to your left. She’s being engaged by a professional plane jumper; she’s intrigued by his high adrenaline lifestyle, but I’m sure you can fix that.”

“Your sudden confidence in me is astounding.”

She hums and smiles at the screen since he can’t see her.

“Considering our first mission together, not very astounding at all, and considering this isn’t about returning equipment in working order...I think my confidence is well placed.”

She times the end of her statement perfectly to his steps so she doesn’t have to hear his response because he’s too close to the mark.


	3. Chapter 3

Q lets Bond’s work become the white noise background to her own as he flawlessly charms the mark. He seems to have recovered completely from his misstep with her earlier, not that she expected anything less. It’s still a marvel to her when there isn’t even a hint of the angry, bitterness he’d turned on her. After a short while there’s nothing else she can do from her limited portable systems while running the scan to see where and when the intelligence was change. So, she leans back and watches James work.

Whenever it comes to this portion of the mission, the part where he seduces the woman, whether she’s a coworker, a mark, or simply a stepping stone, Q can never decide if James is utterly ridiculous, or the most charming and sexy man she’s ever had the pleasure of working with. At least, that’s what it looks like with her objectivity turned up. 

With everything she knows about him, from Skyfall and M to Venice and Vesper, layered into her perceptions it makes him even more extraordinary. It’s easy for Q to admit to herself she wants him. She would like to catalog him personally from head to toe and pillow her head on his chest. She would like to watch his face as he inspects the scars peppered across her skin under her clothing. She doesn’t want to fuck him anymore, which isn’t a surprise considering how little she knows the act means to both of them by this point. The shift from a few months ago is strange, though; then, she would have gladly spread her legs.

Q remains lost in her musings while he works his magic and is taken back to their mark’s apartment. She watches through the grainy security feeds until she no longer has visuals. Then she concentrates entirely on the sounds from his earbud. There’s nothing except the rustle of cloth and low voiced teasing. The target heads for her bathroom and James sighs to the empty room, or to Q herself, she isn’t sure. Not knowing doesn’t keep her from answering him.

“So, this is normally the part where you bid me good night and hide your earbud under a tumbler.”

*********************************************************************************************

The sudden statement makes James blink. Q was always saying and doing things he didn’t expect. He couldn’t say they surprised him, because very little did, but they certainly made life more interesting. It was completely jarring to hear her soft matter of fact tone after the drawn out whispers of his target.

“Normally, yes.”

James decidedly doesn’t reach for his earbud even though he knows there’s no video surveillance in the bedroom. Now that he’s paying attention he can hear Q’s breathing, barely there in his ear, less than the mockery of the ocean in a seashell. There’s a rustling in the bathroom of his target dropping her dress and James is beginning to think Q’s not going to say anything else when he hears her again. 

“If you don’t mind-In light of the circumstances...”

She sounds awkward to him like she never does, even when he body language gives her discomfort away. It’s so strange to him and he wishes he could see her face. It’s understandable and a good choice to ask him not to remove their main form of contact since they know they’ve been at least partially compromised. Feeling a rare moment of charity James stops her before she continues.

“Of course. I’ll leave it in.” He hadn’t even really thought about taking it out that night, he realized. Was he thinking of her safety, or of her proximity? For once they were in the same city, not so very far away from each other as he seduced his target. He almost missed her unusual expression of gratitude because the mark reenters the room, but the quiet “Thank you” echoes in his head as he holds out his hand.

**************************************************

Q pulls her legs up into her chair, making herself comfortable. She should remove her headset and simply leave the microphone on in case she encounters a distressing situation, but instead she stays in place and listens. 

“Miss me, Mister Bond?”

Even if Q can’t see her anymore, she can still imagine their target: high tight breasts wrapped in colored lace perfectly presented without a push-up bra, smooth, tanned, scarless skin. And, of course, Quinn can actually hear her. She sounds like hormones and the rush of blood through veins when she calls for James. If Q was anything less than professional, she’d slide a hand between her legs and imagine she could actually see them. As it stands, she almost speaks aloud to correct the woman. His title is _Commander_ , not the mister of a civilian. 

Quinn is professional and she doesn’t want to actually fuck with James. Not anymore. But professionalism doesn’t mean she can’t think about it as she listens. She lets the irresistible heat crawl through her anyway and spells out the ridiculous nothings he says to the target in binary on a tablet in front of her. 

*************************

It’s strange for James, knowing Q’s listening. He’s had an audience for his exploits many times before, but generally a visual audience, or an audience receiving both visual and audio, never just audio, and never Q. He can’t say it’s distracting, exactly, because he can’t even hear her over the panting and moaning of the target. She’s a bit more vocal than his usual encounters, which would figure. 

He does wonder if Q is even paying attention. She could very well be focused on work, not even listening to him at the moment. He doubts that, because it’s her job to monitor the situation, and she’s never shirked her duties that he knows of, but this was a little different than what the job usually calls for. James is very careful to dismiss the thought that she be quietly enjoying herself as she listens in. He likes the thought of his Quartermaster with her hand between her legs a little too much for the circumstances.

Bond focuses instead on their target. He brings her off once easily with his hand, and then he gives her what she’s expecting. She’s beautiful to be sure, fit and curved enough for it to be an excellent lay. She comes a second time, and he’s wondering if he can hold out for a third.

“James.”

It’s not the breathy call of the mark beneath him, but Q’s clipped professional whisper calling his name. His orgasm hits him by surprise, a rare thing in his work. He waits a moment, feigning exhaustion to the mark’s side, for Q to continue. There’s nothing else. No sounds of a fight, or her voice, just her quiet breathing again. If he didn’t know better he would think the silence sounded slightly chagrined.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading! This chapter wasn't beta approved so all mistakes are mine. 
> 
> I'd like to give an extremely special thanks to cantonspeed who has made an absolutely glorious book cover for this series that everyone should go check out [here.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/754940)
> 
> Lastly, I'd like to apologize for taking so long with this chapter, I've had three-fifths of it sitting in google documents for months, but I just couldn't move forward between school work and other real life issues. The next chapter should come out with less of a wait period because finals are this month and I'm not taking summer classes.

Quinn held her breath for a second, before she realized James was probably listening for life signs. She didn’t mean to say his name and distract him. She could feel her cheeks heat with embarrassment as James and the target breathed heavily. M’s reply to her notification about the discrepancy in their mission had come through and getting his attention had just been automatic. She was too used to having his attention be it through earbud or in person.

He excused himself quietly to the bathroom to take care of the rubber. She heard the door click shut and the water turn on. “Status, Q.”

“Fine, Bond. Everything’s fine, I apologize. M’s reply about our intelligence issue came through and I-” She’s got her hands in her hair grasping at it like the stretch of her scalp will give her the answers.

“It’s fine.”

James cuts her off and Q’s has no idea what he’s thinking. She wants to be able to explain, to offer him some sort of excuse or reason why she called his name while he was inside another woman. It’s better that he interrupted because she can’t even explain it to herself. His directly ensuing orgasm hadn’t escaped her notice either, though whether that was because of her voice or the target’s body she’d probably never know.

“Well?” 

His voice cuts through her frazzled embarrassment and she shapes up, reminding herself of her position and the expectations placed on her shoulders.

“They’re keeping a wary eye out and we’re to do the same, but you’re to finish the information retrieval. Our train home still leaves tomorrow afternoon. They don’t want to draw attention to my presence now by sending more security, so your first objective has changed to making sure my brain doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

Quinn’s alone so she lets herself shiver for the thought of what the order gives James license to do to her if he deems it necessary, but she knew the risks even before M first called her Q. Being K was different; no less intelligent in the field, but more anonymous. K was a simple technician, just one known for being better than most. Q, though, Q’s the whisper in the wind even their allies would love to sink their claws into. 

In a perverse way, she’s glad it’s James with the order. He at least knows well enough to kill her instead of cripple her mind. She’d rather be gone from the world entirely than lose her capacity to perform. It’s something she’s positive he understands.

“Understood. Is that all?”

“Yes, for now.”

**************************

James nods sharply, despite knowing Q can’t see him before splashing water on his face and returning to the bedroom. He understood the order perfectly and knew its correctness. She was better off dead than in the hands of whoever wanted her. He knew she knew the business, wouldn’t blame him (not that she’d be able to) if he made the call. Even just thinking about it felt wasteful. He didn’t think it would come down to killing her, not in the least. He would undoubtedly have a harder time keeping her alive. 

The situation made him glaringly aware of his track record. Vesper, Severine, M...He might feel a need to turn in his gun if Q’s name lengthened his list.

He held back a sigh and slid into bed, absently wrapping his arm around their target when she curled up towards him. He thought quietly about who would be most likely to change information in order to get to Q while he waited for the woman to drop off to sleep. He still needed to fetch the files from her computer, his real goal for following her home. Soon enough she was snoring lightly in his ear, and he still hadn’t thought up with anything to tell Q to check about the danger they were possibly in. 

He left the bed again, carefully so as not to wake the mark, and retrieved the information they needed from the computer, frown marring his face when he realized Q’s discovery was correct, and he didn’t even need her to whisper directions in his ear let alone memorize the layout of the apartment and figure out a way to get her there on site to hack into it later.

The rest of the night passed too slowly for him as he waited for the sun and slipped away from the mark back to his own room. It took a snappish conversation with Q, apparently before her morning tea, to get her to concede to taking a taxi to the hotel and riding with him to the train station instead of meeting past the baggage check, but eventually she caved into his caution and they were on their way back home. 

************************************************************************************

Q woke from a doze by nearly falling from the computer chair to the sound of James running water to shave back in his own hotel room. Her morning didn’t get better after that. 007 was quick to demand she taxi with him to the train station and made the knot in her stomach that hadn’t let her sleep at all tighten every time he scanned the crowded station looking for threats. He did, however, pass over the data he had taken from the mark’s computer without comment, even though they both knew she wouldn’t be able to put it to use without first returning to headquarters’ secure networks. 

Boarding the train was just as simple as it had been on their way to Russia, and it was much more pleasant for her when she realized James was taking their safety as his highest concern and he wasn’t going to spend the trip picking apart her weaknesses. She decided to take full advantage of his watchful eye and began to try and nap, hoping the worries knotted up in her stomach would take James’s eyes as precaution enough to relax and let her rest. 

Just as she settled down, curled up on the bench of their compartment, and closed her eyes, a deafening explosion shook the train in front of them. Q’s eyes flew open, and she couldn’t help but think that trains would be one less way M could try and send her away from England.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can be found on tumblr at putonhisuniverse.tumblr.com


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost 1.5 years later, here is another chapter. I will make no promises about the next one. I'm sorry I'm such an awful updater, but having a job and continuing to get a degree is rough on fanfic writing.

Reaching consciousness while tied to a wooden chair was becoming relevant enough to James’s life that he could title a biography after it. He contemplated escape versus pain and the chance to acquire information briefly. Generally, he’d opted to let his body take whatever punishment may be necessary, but the parameters of this abduction were different in the extreme. Q was more than likely with him somewhere, a room or two away. The mission wasn’t information acquisition or assassination, it was keeping her- MI6’s ultimate source of information out of the hand of whoever had abducted them.

James had no doubt that she had been taken, the anomaly in the mission began and ended with her. For once it wasn’t him that was the focus, a change in his usual outings. It made him even more expendable than he was used to. Therefore, escape was the better option. Escape, find Q, and hopefully, if he was allowed to even think of such an ephemeral concept, not have to kill her. 

He’s attempting to determine whether or not his thumbs are going to be a necessary sacrifice when the door opened exposing the usual sort of blank walls and disgustingly bright fluorescent lights when the switch is hit. 

“James Bond. It’s been a while.”

_Something needed to be done about the failing loyalty of the agents in MI6_ was Bond’s first determination at seeing the former 004 standing in the doorway. 

“Olsen.” He acknowledged and flexed the muscles of his wrists testing the ropes. “Enjoying your death?”

“Not as much as I hear you did for a while, but to some extent, yes I am. The problem is one does have to work to keep up the kind of life we’re accustomed to. Which is why you’re here. I’ve got a job offer to make to little K, and my employer thinks you have enough years left in you to extend the offer to you as well.”

Apparently, Olsen had no knowledge of Q’s current position. He had no doubt something other than a job offer would be awaiting both of them if that information was uncovered. 

“I’m an old dog and the benefits of my current position are hard to let go.”

The punch to his face is exactly what he expects, but it’s also obvious Justin Olsen’s current employment hasn’t been as exacting about his physical condition as MI6 is. 

“Forever M’s dog. I thought so. Lucky Q branch has always been smarter than field agents. Let’s just hope K hasn’t been too charmed by your bulldog sense of loyalty. I had her first. She’ll remember that.”

It’s not jealousy, exactly, that tightens Bond’s jaw, but the disgust that Q probably mourned this bastard and her continued existence at the cost of his from their mission together when he didn’t deserve it as a traitor to their Crown. Olsen takes his non-expression to mean something else entirely, though.

“Or maybe you haven’t had her at all? How novel. I thought all females were to your taste. She does seem a bit skinnier and mannish now in comparison, though.” He shrugs and Bond resolves to see his brains splattered on a wall before he leaves the building. Q was a mystery, neither feminine, nor masculine, but falling somewhere outside that binary of existence. It didn’t make her any less appealing.

“This is the part where you beat me since I’ve refused, yes?”

“I wouldn’t usually out of professional courtesy. I know how boring it is to simply be pummeled on, but in this instance beating you serves a secondary purpose.” 

Bond wonders if Olsen’s given him the food for thought on purpose out of “professional courtesy” before beginning to hit him, or if he’s just gotten even more careless since his defection. If he was anything at all like this before the mission with Q it’s no wonder they were both taken.

****************************************************************************

Quinn wakes with a start to the same sound of flesh hitting flesh from her nightmares. Only this time, it’s very obviously reality rather than the dreaming. There’s a single bulb swinging from a string, and she’s missing her shoes and her glasses. She had, realistically, she thought, assumed that kidnapping and torture scenarios would be unique from each other. This was disturbingly like her first experience. The room was smaller, more of a closet than a room, but otherwise the lack of vision, the bruises and aches from the trainwreck, all of it combines to make her breath speed up and catch in her chest. 

After the Silva incident she’d been forced to go through all the channels that should have preceded her promotion to Q, including a test of interrogation. She’d passed, but she’d been abducted on home soil, where there was no possible way she could have been taken without MI6’s permission. It had been difficult, but not impossible to remember that during the trial. This was different. Someone was trying to recreate what had happened before. She just didn’t know why.

The sound of 007 being beaten reaches her ears incessantly through the thin wall she’s propped up against and she resolves to not be as useless as she was when 004 was taken with her. Even if she survives this time, she doesn’t think she could live with James Bond’s death on her conscience. She’s bound with plastic zips that are going to kill her already poor circulation, and she has no ideas in her brilliant mind to know how to keep her resolution. 

It’s less than an hour before the sound halts, and not even three minutes after that, the door opens up.

“K, my dear, I see you’re still hanging about 00s. Didn’t the last time turn out bad enough for you?”

Justin Olsen leans languidly against the door frame of her closet-like cell just like he had the singular morning they’d had breakfast together. One foot propped against his calf as he rubs at his reddened knuckles and looks down at her. The expletive leaves her tongue before she even thinks.

“ _Fuck you._ ”

“Oh darling, you did that, remember?”

It’s easy to hate herself for it, and his smug expression makes her want to, but that’s unproductive, so she shoves the urge away and thinks of James and Eve instead. She should have slept with them while she had the chance. Her jaw clenches and she desperately wants to see this man hanged for his deception, not just for her, but for the country and MI6 as well. Silva may have been an operative himself, but it takes more recent defectors to provide up to date information, she bets. 

“What was the final result? Your legs are obviously still real, but you’ve got some nasty scars---Tell me about them.” Olsen never did need an invitation to keep talking. Maybe that would work in her favor this time. 

“I lost a kidney.”

“Oh no, that’s too bad. Undoubtedly, that will shorten your shelf life a lot. We’ll have to be careful with you.” He grins as though that means champagne instead of painful rounds of sanitation between bouts interrogation.

“I’d appreciate it.”

“I’m sure we can arrange something even if you’re not done up quite as pretty as you used to be. James claims you won’t sleep with him. Was I that special, K?”

She notes the use of her old title and wonder if that’s because he’s continuing to try and stir her up, or because he’s truly ignorant of her importance to MI6 now. She rolls her eyes broadly despite the way it made her headache pulse. James said nothing of the sort, she’s sure.

“I prefer to think I learned my lesson.”

“Yes, I quite think you did. Too bad. 007 has always been a looker.”

“Who said I don’t look?” She hopes James is still alive for her to look at when this is all said and done, or at least that she’s the dead one no longer looking. She’s terrified of the yawning black unknown beyond the bullet to her brain, but she’d rather face it than betray anyone.

“You haven’t changed a bit, K; well, apart from the kidney, of course. You should have said yes to them. Given up what they wanted last time. They aren’t bad employers, you know.” 

Her eyes narrow at him and she doesn’t bother responding to his entreaties of what might have been.

“Don’t make a face like that. I’m not a laptop that’s malfunctioning. I am however, offering you a job. We need a computer whiz, and you’re just the person for it. You’d have your own lackeys and everything. Just like the Quartermaster. It would take decades for you to get there in MI6, and that’s if the Old-Boy mentality didn’t keep you from the promotion.”

He truly didn’t know about her changed position, and comically, he thought that M would have passed her over for a man, despite her talents, or maybe he never even realized how unique she was in the field of electronics. It wouldn’t surprise her. She tries to turn her amusement into something like a gleam of temptation in her eye. Olsen studies her face for a long time, then kneels and takes one of her curls into his fingers.   
“I do miss you, darling. Witty repartee isn’t a past time of my current co-workers, and they certainly don’t have the style you once did. I know you’re thinking about it. Lots of funding, giving the orders rather than taking them, no pesky rules about legal seizure of evidence....” 

She has to curb the urge to spit on him. Instead, she sucks in a breath and tilts her head into his hand. 

“Could I get my hands undone while I think? I’ll be of no use if my fingers have turned black and died.” 

Olsen frowns and grips her chin, tilting her face to look into her unfocused eyes. She can’t see the details of his face, not this close without her glasses. 

“Only if you’re not trying to be clever. I would have to have to leave you in a puddle of your own bleeding piss again, K. It was so unattractive, and no one is going to give you a kidney when you lose your last one.” 

She shudders against that outcome, instinctively flinching and recoiling. Nothing about it is an act. Another infection, the weakness of starvation, and her body consuming itself from the inside out scared her more than even flying did now. Her fear must satisfy him, because he flicks a knife open and frees her wrists. She refrains from asking about James. She doesn’t know if it will my Olsen jealous or triumphant, and neither is an emotion she wants to deal with.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading. You can find me on tumblr at: putonhisuniverse.tumblr.com


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